2019-2020 Avatar: Austin White

Salutations from an inexperienced and newly appointed Gatton Academy avatar! I’ve been asked to share all about myself and my past year at Gatton with whoever might be reading this, so here’s an attempt.  Let’s see… Owensboro, meeting new friends, attending class, and tons of opportunities is a pretty good summary. See you guys in my next post!

HEY GUYS, LONG TIME NO SEE! Just kidding, I guess they want me to share with you all a few more details than that, so let’s jump into it. I’m originally from Owensboro, Kentucky and I went to Daviess County High School in Daviess County. DCHS was a pretty decent school and I probably would’ve been alright if I stayed there for junior and senior year. Although, I’ll be forever grateful that my mom brought up the opportunity that was The Gatton Academy of Mathematics and Science .

For me, transitioning to Gatton meant leaving behind a few amazing friends, my family with seven younger siblings, and sweet, sweet Dave (my car). Once I arrived, I realized everything was much better than I thought. Most of my peers were going through something similar which made it so much easier to start a conversation. Even now, I feel like I could start chatting with anyone and end up with a new friend if they weren’t one already. Gatton has an amazing talent of fostering a tight-knit community, despite the two-year stay of all its students. 

A few great contributors to that are the classes and schedules of all the students. I don’t think I’ve ever heard any of my peers say that they were the only Gatton student in their class, even with the countless classes offered through WKU. It’s likely due to how we’re used to challenging ourselves in our coursework at our home high schools. That habit definitely doesn’t disappear in the transition here which means that it’s pretty easy to run into at least one friendly face in your class.

The same can be said for the various extracurricular activities Gatton has to offer. I’ve had two of these experiences in my pursuit of some much-needed exercise and academic passion. At my home high school, I developed a love for soccer and played on the high school soccer team. Luckily for me, a group of guys who had the same experience came together to form an intramural soccer team. I was elated to join in and had an awesome time whooping some of the other WKU undergrad teams. My other happy accident was when I wanted to dive into computer science research. After emailing a generous professor begging him to let me join his lab, he told me that I could come to one of the lab member meetings and meet everyone.  Lo and behold, I opened the door to the supposed meeting place and stepped in only to find my buddy Patrick sitting patiently in a chair. After talking to him, we quickly found out that we were there for the same reason. Even in the present, we’re still sitting right next to each other in the same research lab completing a Gatton Academy summer RIG (Research Internship Grant).

Thanks to all of the great people and opportunities at Gatton, my transition ended up being surprisingly easy. I’d even go as far as to say that the past year was my favorite out of the seventeen I’ve lived through.  I hope this provides a little more insight into my Gatton life during my junior year and the far from lonesome adventure it was. 

See you in my next post (hopefully),
Austin White